Sochi team competition for ice skaters

[golden411]

London 2012 gymnastics fever has become a little opportunity to spread awareness of the Sochi team competition for ice skaters. Two separate observations:

- A young American skater (who has competed internationally with good results) tweeted, "I'm thinkin' we need an Olympic team event for skating." A skating website quickly replied to inform her of the Sochi team competition.

- And when a young skating enthusiast (whose name I don't recognize) sent a tweet wishing for a team event, USFSA immediately assured her that Sochi will have one.

[london_calling]

I feel like figure skating doesn't lend itself easily to a team competition. I'm interested to see how it all plays out in 2014. Right now, it doesn't even seem like the ISU is sure how it's all going to work.

[dorispulaski]

It does, at least as well as gymnastics. There are even several ways to do it.



But the real team event would be synchronized skating, which really should be in the Winter Olympics IMO.

[starryxskies]

I wonder how the Federations will see this. The talks about the Russian Fed asking for 2 spots at Sochi really got me thinking. If they're really stuck with only one spot, it means Plu needs to skate in both the team event and the men's singles from the viewpoint atm. However, the rules really aren't clear at the moment (if there are even any) if it's going to be the same as gymnastics. 1 per discipline makes up the team but does their skater for each discipline have to be from their qualifying pool for singles/pairs events? Like for example, even if Russia only has 1 spot for Men's Singles, can they choose their #2 Russian man to skate for the team event? This gives other skaters more opportunities, kind of like an honorary prize.

I'm sure Federations still value the singles/pairs competition higher atm so I'm afraid they might not want to send their top skater to exhaust their energy in this new field yet either. For a country like Japan where it's so tight, having their #1 man skate (Dai/Yuzuru/Kozuka) for the team event before their singles event is really a disadvantage for said #1 skater because the #2 & 3 men will have all this energy for the singles event that they haven't exerted yet.

I really hope this team event allows wiggle room to "qualify" one more skater in each discipline just to give others more opportunities and to level the playing field for their own events especially since it's going to be held first from what I read.

Interesting to see what this will develop into.

[gmyers]

All plushenkos careful training and pacing of himself could be totally undone by having to do both team and singles. Might be better to ask the team event moved after the singles pairs dance

[starryxskies]

Seems like there already rules for the team event
http://corporate.olympics.com.au/fil...ec2011_web.pdf

As of right now, Countries with only 1 qualifier for a discipline must enter that skater into the team event. No exceptions. Countries with 2 or 3 skaters in a discipline gotta have them battle it out the short program portion of the team event the day before or something (what..? it's both now?)

So the Federations don't really have any control for who to send. I don't know how I feel about this team event now that the rules are like this and it's held before the Singles/Pairs competition. It should really be the event to close it off before the gala. This is going to hurt the Russians and Japan the most I believe with all 3 men skaters a contender for the OGM with each other.

I wish we can petition against having this event first somewhere...

[Mathman]

I don't think it will hurt anybody to skate in the team event first, then a week later do the individuals. Gymnasts do it back to back.

If you have two or more skaters I think the federation has the choice. They can send the same skater to both the short and the long, or they can send one skater to the short and a different skater to the long. Conceivably this might benefit a country that has a "short program specialist" who is known for skating a great short but running out of steam in the long.

So, who is going to win the very first Olympic team gold medal? As of now, Canada has Chan, Osmond, Duhamel & Radford, Virtue & Moir. Can anyone beat that?

[dorispulaski]

Russia comes close- Volosozhar & Trankov, Bobrova & Soloviev, Plushenko (if his back surgery goes OK), and whoever is strongest next year of the talented flock of Russian ladies.

[Mathman]

I wonder what Japan will do for a pairs team.

[GF2445]

This team event is baffling me a little. If they want a team event format the isu will have to have more team competitions so people can get used to this format. The world team trophy every two years and the Olympics every four is not good enough. What the isu should be thinking about is what they can do to make synchronised skating an Olympic discipline.

[dorispulaski]

I wish they would make synchro an Olympic discipline. I d heard the problem is the extra housing, etc,, that would be needed for all those team members, though?

[golden411]

Cross-posting from the Olympic team event thread in The Edge:

The ISU just published an updated version of "Qualification System for Figure Skating and the Rules for the Figure Skating Team Event."

Link: http://isu.sportcentric.net/db//files/serve.php?id=4263

The team event is discussed in Annex A, which begins on page 5 of the 12-page document.

The document is dated Feb 5, 2013, and it was posted on the ISU website on Feb 18.

http://www2.isu.org/vsite/vnavsite/p...0.html?id=1264

I wonder what Japan will do for a pairs team.

Seems to me that Japan has two options regarding Pairs.

- "Each Team must participate in at least 3 disciplines (Ladies/Men/Pair Skating/Ice Dance) of the Figure Skating Team Event." (page 8)

So I guess that Japan could compete in the team event without any Pair. The Japanese Team would be at a disadvantage overall because it would not earn any points for the Pair discipline.

- "NOCs/ISU Members who do not have qualified Skaters/Couples in an individual OWG competition/discipline (Single Lady, Single Man, Pair Skating, Ice Dance), may benefit of an “Additional Athletes Quota” and enter into the Figure Skating Team Event 1 Skater/Couple. If applicable, each NOC may benefit of this Additional Athletes Quota for only one discipline of the Figure Skating Team Event." (page 9)

I think this means that a Japanese Pair who does not qualify for the Olympic event for the Pair discipline itself would be permitted to compete in the Olympic Team event. So I think Takahashi and her new partner theoretically could compete in the Team event for Japan. If they placed last among the 10 Pairs in the SP, they would earn one placement point toward the Team total. If the Japanese Team as a whole advances to the free skating and the Japanese Pair places last among the 5 Pairs in the FS, the pair would earn six placement points toward the Team total.